The Executive Yuan on Thursday approved a bill that would allow religious groups to change the registrations of their real-estate assets.
Properties owned by religious groups can be regarded as public goods, and the bill would prevent individuals from appropriating them for their own benefits, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a weekly Cabinet meeting.
Data from the Ministry of the Interior showed that about 750 hectares of land belonging to 7,500 temples nationwide are registered under the name of natural persons.
Photo: CNA
That is due to religious groups not having completed their temple registration at the time they acquired land, temples being unable to pay land taxes on donated land, or their land being used for farming and other reasons, Department of Civil Affairs Deputy Director Cheng Ying-hung (鄭英弘) said.
Given frequent arguments among group members over property ownership, the draft bill aims to use administrative tools to reduce such arguments and prevent individuals from appropriating temple assets, he said.
The practice of registering temples under individual names has generated many conflicts, such as when an owner is ordered to auction off the property or about inheriting it, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said.
The new bill seeks to prevent such conflicts, Lo added.
The proposal is to be forwarded to the Legislative Yuan for review and approval.
Two years after the bill is passed by the legislature, qualified religious groups seeking to change a temple’s registration can file an application with the interior ministry, Cheng said.
Qualified religious groups include those registered as foundations, corporations and temples, Cheng said, adding that groups whose applications are being reviewed would be regarded as unregistered temples.
The bill is not applicable to altars, and unregistered churches or structures, he added.
Religious groups cannot own farmland, so the bill would restrict third parties or inheritors from transferring land used for farming to another party, Deputy Minister of the Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said.
Restrictions on temples acquiring certain categories of land would remain, Hua said.
Due taxes would have to be paid before land can be prepared under the bill, he added.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS